First, this film won an
award in 2001. It’s a powerful film, but not really a pleasant
one. There is some violence here, and a lot of ugliness in the
form of racism.

The film tells the story of Romo, a
15-year-old mixed race teenager who is half white (his mother is
British) and half Asian (his father was Pakistani). Although he
and his sister are both “Paki’s”—which is a racist way of calling them
Pakistanis—Romo has learned that he can conceal his Asian features well
enough to pass for being white. Why would he want to do
that? It seems he’s trying really hard to fit in, to
belong. That’s a universal need, as we discussed on Wednesday, a
really crucial part of anyone’s identity, feeling like you belong
somewhere. This film shows us Romo trying really hard to be
accepted by the very people who have been so cruel to him in the
past. Why??? Why does anyone join a “gang”? Maybe
he’s just tired of being the victim and he feels it’s a way to be more
powerful. Maybe he’s been the victim so long that he’s completely
internalized all that racist violence—to the point that what he most
wants is to completely annihilate that whole side of himself; he wants
to kill that whole “Paki” side of himself just as people around him
have tried to kill him. That seems to be what he’s trying to
do. But can he??

You’ll see in the film how much
racism affected him throughout his childhood, growing up as a minority
in an almost all white neighborhood, where everywhere he goes he can
feel the hate. Violence is never far away. In the
flashbacks that punctuate the film, we get a small
sense of the abuse he had to endure growing up. But we also see
that intimidation and violence firsthand in several scenes. We
first see it when his little sister is taunted on her way to
school. The men who taunt her are members of the skinhead group
called the National Front, a well known white supremacist gang in
England. You’ll notice in that scene where Romo is walking his
sister to school that he has no intention of “protecting” her from this
gang—even though his mother tells him to watch out for her.
Instead, he hides away and leaves her to fend completely for
herself. He’s more concerned about not being seen with a
“Paki”—even if she’s his sister. That really speaks to how
alienated he is from his real self. He abandons his own
sister. But he abandons her even before that. It’s really
obvious that whenever he looks at her he feels ashamed; her race is too
visible. You may begin to think pretty early on that this guy is
heartless, horrible. But that’s what the film is exploring—what
racism has done and is continuing to do to this kid, the psychic damage
it inflicts, how it rips his soul completely apart, how it
completely threatens his identity.

You’ll notice throughout the film
he keeps looking in the mirror. It’s a motif. The film
opens with him looking in the mirror, talking to himself. And
throughout, he keeps checking himself in the mirror. Each time he
looks, the feeling is a little different, until the last scene, which
is the real climax of the film. When you see him looking in the
mirror, try to imagine what he’s looking for, what he’s feeling, what
he seems to be trying to feel.

One or two other things that might
be hard to pick up on because of the British accent—and only seeing the
film once. When he walks his sister to school he tells her he’ll
be home at 6:00 for a special dinner to celebrate his first day on the
job. At some point you realize he's completely neglected to go
home. Notice,
too, the scene in the pub; in the background, the
comedian on stage is telling “Paki” jokes.

The action of the film is pretty
simple. It’s 13 minutes long and it follows this boy in the
course of one day. But it’s not just any day—this is a big day
for him. He’s starting a new job. His co-workers at this
new job are both in the National Front, that white supremacist gang we
see when he walks his sister to school. He wants badly to be
accepted by them. Nothing else—his “Paki” family
included—is the least bit important to him. Will he be
accepted? At what cost????

Questions to
Consider

Are the men from the
National Front the only ones with racist attitudes? (The
comedian, the people in the pub—they’re all hostile.) Would it be
different for him if the racist attitudes were limited to that group?

What do you think
happens to this boy after the last scene?

Not everyone reacts
like Romo when confronted by racism. What makes him seek the
acceptance of the people who’ve been so cruel to him? Does it
seem psychologically realistic to you that he’d want to join with them?

In her brief scene,
the mother says her children wouldn't be acting this way if their
father was still there.

Another short film, Second Skin, is also about
identity, but not
really about an identity crisis. It’s more to do with how we
judge
people by their appearances, but how, especially for teenagers,
appearances can be deceiving.